Well Isn't That Thumb-thing?

For my birthday, Vince, my male BFF - which I guess makes him my boyfriend although not in an extramarital way - gave me a mandoline slicer. He knows I'm a nerd lover of kitchen gadgets, and also a person who is unreasonably anal very particular about the uniformity of my vegetable slices. He probably chose this particular gift because he volunteered to slice up some onions at my place over 4th of July weekend and I stood over him like a drill sergeant and was all, "A little thinner. No no, not that thin." I'm sure it was at that moment when, in his head, he was probably like, "Eff this. I'm getting her a slicer for her birthday."

Anyway, my birthday slicer looks pretty much like this one:

I am not kidding when I say that I use this thing nearly every day. I'll find an excuse just to use it. And aside from slicing veggies, I've gotten a little more creative with it - like trying to shred up cooked chicken breasts and stuff.*

*Note to self: some things work better than others.

Anyway. You know how you know better than to do something, but you do it anyway because you've done it before and so far have never experienced any ill effects from it? Like putting the bottle of nail polish beside me on the carpet while I'm sitting on the floor painting my toenails. Or letting my kids carry my iPhone around even though I know they're, like, using it to videotape the toilet flushing and stuff. Logically I know that there will someday be consequences to these irresponsible actions: a big polish stain on my carpet or a crapper full of Apple. But yet I continue to flirt with danger.

(Yes, I'm totally going somewhere with this. I promise.)

So do you see the little doohickey (that's the technical term) on top of the mandoline slicer, the thing that looks like a hat? Yeah. It's a thingy that you pierce into the veggie you're slicing, so you don't have to hold it with your hand and risk slicing more than the veggie. But I? Don't use it very often. Because clearly I am an advanced user of kitchen gadgets with no need for extra protection. I don't wear a floaty when I jump into a pool, and I don't use the slicer-hat when I use the mandoline slicer. I'm hardcore, y'all.

Except for yesterday. When I was slicing up this one onion.

It was crooked. And I was trying to get it straight. And I thought I had enough onion between my fingers and the blade. But apparently my mad culinary skillz took a temporary leave of absence. Kind of like this: slice, slice, slice, slice, slice, slice, sliiiiiice.

I stopped slicing and had what is best described an as oh, shit moment: those few suspended milliseconds before the pain begins, when you know you've done something to yourself but you're almost afraid to look. Then I looked. And there was blood. Thank goodness I was standing right beside the sink becauseI was able to hold it over the basin just as it started dripping. Then I stupidly ran water over it, which brought the pain from virtually nonexistant to OMFGsonofabitch!!!!*

*Curse words are totally appropriate in situations such as these.

Y'all? I had literally sliced a piece off the side of my thumb. There it sat on the slicer, a sickly-looking shade of gray, ready to drop down into the onion pile. Blood was running down my hand and wrist and I was trying to rinse it off. I grabbed a few paper towels and pressed them to my thumb, although a dry paper towel on an open wound feels no better than running water. I immediately felt lightheaded.

Curtis makes fun of me. He says I'm a wimp. Maybe he's right - but I can't help it. I have busted my front teeth to powder. I have given birth to three children. I've donated blood. But never, ever have any of those things made me feel as yucky as I do when I cut myself.

It took forever to get the sliced spot to quit bleeding. It just kept bleeding through the paper towels, so I wrapped a Bandaid tightly around it, hoping the pressure and the non-stick pad would help. Then I watched as blood oozed over the top. Finally, after what seemed like forever, it seemed to slack off - and even though I was wearing a crusty bandage, I didn't dare remove it.

Fast-forward to this morning, when I woke up. I looked down at my thumb - which still hurts like a mo-fo, by the way - and the Bandaid was, like, black. Dried blood had crusted under my thumbnail. It just looked like a disgusting mess. "It's been long enough to have sealed over by now," I thought. "I'll just clean it up a bit."

So I peeled the Bandaid off. And the blood just started dripping. Dripdripdripdrip, like I'd turned on an effing faucet. Ugh. Seriously?? So I was making a mess all over my bathroom. And then came the inevitable feeling in the pit of my stomach - but it was much, much worse than yesterday.

Please please please please please don't pass out, I pleaded silently with my body. You're here alone with the kids. They'll be scared. Just suck it up. But my vision started swimming. My head felt light. I was dangerously close to throwing up. Suddenly, I was drenched in a cold sweat - like, my hair was literally plastered to my forehead and my shirt was damp. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and all the color had drained from my face - even my lips were nearly colorless. It was weird.

And my kids were all, "Mommy? We haven't had breakfast yet ..."

I wandered around the house, trying to breathe deeply and laying on any cool surface I could find. It was the only thing that helped. (Well, that and the vision of Colin running to get my neighbors, and them seeing my braless, hairy-legged, pajama-clad body all splayed out on the floor.) I was finally able to start feeling more normal, but my little episode had taken over twenty minutes out of my morning routine, so I was running behind. Then I had to help three kids get ready without the assistance of my thumb. You don't realize how often you use your thumb until it's out of commission. It was hard, y'all. Even so, Colin was only about three minutes later than usual arriving at school - but I was still braless and in my PJs, praying it would be an uneventful trip to the elementary and back.

Anyway, I managed to get another Bandaid wrapped around my thumb. Like the first one, it's saturated with blood, but I'm not taking the stupid thing off - at least not until Curtis is home. Because now Colin, the only one old enough to be halfway helpful if I lost consciousness, is at school. So if I passed out, Cameron and Coby would probably be like, "Whee! Mommy's on the floor, let's jump on her!"

If Curtis makes fun of me for being a wimp, I'll just stop trying to fight it and throw up on him and then faint. We'll see who's laughing then!

Seriously...I could BARELY read that. My stomach started churning and got all flittery and I felt sick. Ewww. I hate cuts, especially cuts from very sharp things like that. Funny enough...I have a slicer just like that and I literally NEVER use it. It just sits high up on a shelf collecting dust. Perhaps I fear the slice too much. Good luck with the thumb heal and the bleeding.

O.M.G. Do you remember the making of spiced apple cake last year? I sliced the tip of my pinky off. I nearly threw up. And I wan't using the mandolin. I was using a vegetable peeler. It bled for days, it seemed. Pinkies, not as useful as thumbs, but by GOD it hurt!!! So...yes...I feel your pain and I respond much in the same way - except with pictures on FB for more pity.

Oh. GIRL. Reading this story gave me a funny feeling behind my molars every time I thought about your piece of thumb in the slicer. And don't you just LOVE how kids are so oblivious to the lengths we go to for them? Like when my daughter is rolling around on the floor screaming at the top of her lungs for mac and cheese while I've got my head in the toilet on a morning sickness death bed. I'm thinking about sending my kids to Sudan until they appreciate the concept of "other people."